Kornblumen-Krumen
by SonoSvegliato
Summary: Ludwig and Gilbert lived content lives in West Berlin. They had a roof over their heads, soup in their bowls, and enough water for their glasses and the small garden of cornflowers that Gilbert so meticulously cared for. God gave them no warning of the terrible disaster. But Gilbert was not about to let the adverse win. Historical, 1960's. Berlin Wall. Young!Ludwig, no romance.
1. Chapter 1

**I've had a craving for history these past few days, and have spent the last two hours researching things on German history... I have no idea what I'm going to do with this, whether or not I'll continue it or not, but here is some story with my favorite bros the Germans. Set in 1960's.**

 **Kornblumen-Krumen: Cornflower Crumbs (PLEASE let me know if this translation is right; I'd hate to have the German wrong even though I like the title.)**

 **Okay so I'm uploading this again for the new cover and fixed summary. And then deleted and REUPLOADED AGAIN because it wouldn't go through. Sorry people :( But here it is again!**

 **Hope you enjoy?**

 **xxSonoSvegliato**

* * *

His brother was an engineer.

A good one, too, not some stuffy loon that shut himself up in the house all day, fiddling with wrenches and muttering madly about the laws of physics.

"That's the funny thing about most engineers," his brother had said. "Everybody thinks they're proficient with tools, when in reality all of us have a few screws loose."

No, he took it back. His brother wasn't a good engineer. He was an awesome engineer, as his brother had so frequently reminded him.

They lived in West Berlin. "The awesome part," his brother had deemed it. He had a childish fascination with the word, belabored the idea that "life was awesome". And while Ludwig never took to his brother's vocabulary, he grew up never questioning his philosophy. They had a roof over their heads, soup in their bowls, and enough water for their glasses and the small garden of cornflowers that his brother so meticulously cared for.

"Isn't gardening for girls?" he'd asked once, watching his brother pulling up weeds and yanking at their roots. He sat on the back stoop, the fresh air warm against the back of his neck.

His brother had laughed. "Gardening's for everybody. Don't make me doubt my masculinity."

"Why don't you grow anything else besides cornflowers? We could plant vegetables, beans, herbs...why cornflowers?"

"We can buy those things. Why waste time growing them? Somebody's glad we buy their produce, I can promise you that."

"But cornflowers aren't good for anything. Isn't growing them more of a waste of time than growing something we can use?"

"They're good for some things," his brother had retorted, wiping pale hair off his glistening forehead. "Some medicinal properties, I think. Tea, maybe."

"But we don't make tea. I think you just grow them because you think they're pretty."

"You really think?"

He nodded fervently. "They're blue."

His brother broke into a wide smile. "You've discovered my shameful secret - national pride."

"I don't know why you insist on being Prussian. Mutti and Vati weren't Prussian."

"Mutti was Prussian," his brother explained. "But Vati took her here when they got married."

"Are you positive?"

"Of course I'm positive. You can ask Opa the next time he visits." Their grandfather was the one that had supported them in place of their parents, though he had only because of a sense of moral duty. He had remained their aloof guardian up until Ludwig's brother had grown up and deemed not a complete disappointment to the Beilschmidt family tree. Now he visited every once in a while, though they became into trickle as time moved on. He still supplied them with money, though. It was enough Deutschemarks to get by on. More than enough.

During the night, with a lamp burning its dim orange and casting its ghostly light on their bed sheets, his brother told him bedtime stories. Ludwig told him he was too old for fairy tales, and that he wasn't going to listen and that his brother could just talk to himself and would he please turn off the light?

His brother never listened, and deep down Ludwig never actually wanted him too.

"Fairy tales!" he'd scoff. "These aren't just any old fairy tales. This is the Grimm brothers and history."

That night was a story about cornflowers. His brother told him about Queen Louise of Prussia, running from Berlin and from Napoleon's endless march, hiding her children in a field of cornflowers and weaving wreaths to keep them still and silent.

"Cornflowers must have been very large back then," Ludwig remarked at the end of the tale, "for people to be able to hide in them."

"What?" his brother laughed, "You can't imagine me hiding in the garden?"

Ludwig imagined him pressed to the dirt, blue petals contrasting starkly with his albinism, the color a flash of electricity against dark red-violet eyes, the stalks definitely not enough to conceal him from anyone's view. It was silly.

"You're too pale to hide."

"I'll use the buds as camouflage. Or pass as a ghost. Ah! I can see it now! That sissy Austrian and his man-girl Elizabeta will pass by on their morning walk, talking about Beethoven and cake and stupid things like that, and then the Awesome Me will pop out and scare their souls straight out of their bodies!"

"Miss Héderváry would hit you with her frying pan again. Don't you remember the time she caught you stealing her Donauwelle from her kitchen?"

"That wasn't her Donauwelle," his brother snorted. "That was Edelstein's. I was looking to smash it in his face."

He went on with another story. It wasn't new, as in fact, his brother had told it over and over that it was to the point that Ludwig had not only memorized the words, but also knew the precise moment his brother said them, the cadence of the tale like the rhythm of a song and each syllable as familiar to him as the walls of his room. It was from the Grimm brothers, as his brother harbored such a ridiculous fascination with them. Hansel and Gretel.

"And so Hansel, being as awesome as he was, tried to make do without white pebbles by leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. Their unawesome parents led them farther and farther into the woods and left them there again. Hansel and Gretel try to follow the breadcrumbs home, but some stupid birds ate them so they get lost."

"I don't think it was the birds fault," Ludwig said.

"Of course it was. They ate the breadcrumbs so that Hansel and Gretel couldn't find their way home. That's not cool."

"But maybe it wasn't the birds. Breadcrumbs are breadcrumbs, not white pebbles. White pebbles are heavy and could gleam in the moonlight. The breadcrumbs could have been picked up by the wind, and, even if they weren't, they don't shine and they'd be difficult to follow in the dark."

"No, no, no. It was definitely the birds."

"Why didn't they use something else, then? Something the birds wouldn't want?"

"Don't question the Grimm brothers, Luddy."

"I'm not. I'm questioning the rationalities of Hansel and Gretel. They could have used something else. Ripped a shirt and tied pieces of it to trees, or just followed their parents even when they told them to stay put."

"They were regular children," his brother replied with a smile, "not mastermind child-geniuses like you."

"Simple observation of other options doesn't make me a genius. Why wouldn't Hansel and Gretel follow their parents, if they knew that they meant to abandon them there in the forest?"

"Maybe they'd given them cornflower wreaths," his brother suggested with an exhale of laughter. "Now don't interrupt. I'm the one telling the story. Where was I? Oh. So they're in this really dark, spooky forest, all alone and cold, but Hansel and Gretel aren't afraid of any trees and trudge on until they find this super awesome house..."

Ludwig was mostly asleep by the time he finished and finally turned out the light, and was still asleep by the time he got up to catch the subway line into East Berlin, where he worked.

The next night, there were no bedtime stories.

And he was without them the next.

And the next.

The cornflowers in the garden drooped and withered in the August sun, and nothing Ludwig did was enough to save them. It was only when Mr. Edelstein finally investigated the strange, unnatural quietness that he was found sitting in the sad remains, desperately patting soil around a dead bloom, when Ludwig was told the possible reason for his brother's disappearance. The words were shaped by Mr. Edelstein's gentlest voice, too thin and grating, and continued by Miss Héderváry's shaking voice, muffled by her hands pressed to her face.

Gilbert had gotten lost in the Grimms' forest, without even breadcrumbs to help him home or cornflowers to hide in, stuck and alone in the East, on the other side of the Wall.

* * *

 **Okay. To explain that ending:**

 **August 13, 1961, "East Germans permanently closed the border between East and West Berlin". It began with barbed wire and soldiers, so they didn't just erect the massive concrete wall in one day, but I was reading up on how families got separated on wither side of the wall and found that, before the Berlin Wall was erected, Berliners could cross onto either side of the border, whether for work, to shop, just walking or whatever. There were trains and subway lines. But basically "Overnight, families were separated", which is absolutely tragic. The history of the Wall is horribly interesting, if you want to read up on it. I don't know what possessed me to read up on it, but I didn't know too much about it and the photos of when it came down are so moving that it gets me every time. Thus: Germany and Prussia, West and East, separated.**


	2. Sabbath

**Wow, here's a second chapter 0.0 This is the most motivated I've been to write in a while. There's a whole lot to research. I have some more new found respect for everybody who writes historical fiction. I've checked out three library books on the Cold War, have five to seven tabs open on the Berlin Wall...even so, I'm prone to overlooking certain points or misunderstanding. Just forewarning, though I am really trying to get this as historically correct as I possibly can. There's very little information I can get on the East Berlin, and my knowledge of how communism actually works is limited. There's lots about the West, and how America reacted to the Wall, but very little on the East. If anybody has something, that would be fantastic. I'm scavenging to the very edges of both library and internet for descriptions.**

 **Oh, and speaking of limited knowledge, I am neither Protestant** **Christian nor Jewish. And I am so, so, sorry if I messed ANYTHING up. Please, please, PLEASE tell me.**

 **Send me PM detailing your whole faith if you feel the need be. Give me a nine page message on how something should be depicted. I'm looking at what both sides of the Wall were like, stories, border troops, and sooner or later I'm going to have to see what communism is like. But, yeah. Heh. Sorry. Thanks.**

* * *

He cocooned himself inside the large quilt of Mr. Edelstein's guestroom, cheek pressed to the pillow and teeth biting the inside of his lip, eyes so tightly shut that streaks of color shot behind his eyelids.

"Ludwig, _szeretet,"_ he heard Miss Elizabeta call softly from the other side of the door. "Are you awake?"

Yes, he was, didn't want to be but had been for the entire ugly night. He could count the number of hours of sleep he'd gotten in the past few days on one hand. He wanted to sleep. He really did. He was so tired all the time, too, and he wanted to escape, if only for a little while...

But the mind is a cruel, rebellious thing. It brought up his brother's face, sang his brother's words in his ears, sliced him open with the image of his brother alone on the other side of some terrible, apocalyptic wall, with the Soviets, away from him and probably more lonely and scared than Ludwig was...

The door creaked open, and he felt Miss Elizabeta's footsteps as she crossed into the room. The bed squeaked as she sat on the edge of it and brushed some light hair from his face.

"Ludwig," she repeated. "It's time to get up."

He might not be able to sleep, but he was proficient in feigning it. He curled further into the quilt.

Miss Elizabeta shook him gently. "Come on, _drágám._ Roderich and I have to go."

He turned over and looked at her at that, blinking. The soft morning light coming in from the window fell sweetly onto the floor, and he hated it for being so lovely.

"It's Saturday," he remarked in a flat voice. "What do you have to do?"

Miss Elizabeta smiled. "Rest, according to _Yahweh._ Saturday is the Sabbath."

Mr. Edelstein and Ms. Elizabeta were Jewish. It was exceptionally strange to him, as he and his brother were Lutheran Protestants and had known nothing else but Christianity. They weren't exactly _devout_ Christians, but they still went to church most Sundays and, when summer was over, Ludwig was sent to Sunday School.

"I thought you told me that yesterday was the Sabbath," he said. He _knew_ Ms. Elizabeta had said so. He remembered because she'd asked him to help clean, which he was more than happy to do in a vain effort to get his mind off Gilbert. She had been in a frenzy, leaving the house to go shopping, coming back and cleaning the house, occasionally joining Mr. Edelstein in the kitchen and cooking. It was chaotic to Ludwig's eyes.

"The Sabbath started," Ms. Elizabeta explained to him now. "Remember the candles?"

He nodded. She'd lit them at sunset. It was...well, it was definitely extremely important. He didn't quite know how, because he had ceased to understand what language she had switched to, but it seemed to be some kind of custom, and Gilbert had told him that all customs were respectable.

"The candles mark the beginning of the Sabbath with the commandments _Zachor,_ remembering the Sabbath, and _Shamor,_ observing the Sabbath. And then we drank the wine as celebration."

"Like what I do on Sundays with the Holy Communion, I think. But you don't believe in Jesus, so maybe not."

"No," she agreed. "You drink the Blood of your Christ. We drink wine in wait of ours."

"Gilbert told me there was only _one_ God."

"There is. But we call to Him in different names and He answers in different ways. Get up, please, and get dressed. I would like to go to the morning service."

"But I'm not Jewish," he retorted indignantly.

"Yes, but Roderich and I agree that we certainly can't just leave you here alone. Think of it as going to church, only on a Saturday."

He made no response, just turned over.

"Ludwig," Ms. Elizabeta sighed.

"I'll be okay on my own," he said. "When Gilbert leaves for work, I'm alone all day and I'm fine."

"But you're not at your house anymore. Gilbert is -"

"I am perfectly aware of the current circumstances, Ms. Elizabeta. Thank you for the offer of joining you and Mr. Edelstein for your Sabbath celebration, but I'm not feeling well. I think I'd better stay here."

Her hand went to his forehead. He wanted to rip it off, but forced himself to remain civil. Her palm was cool against his skin, and rough with patting dough and the regular, daily toils of human life. She had big hands, like his brother's, and if he closed his eyes... if he closed his eyes and ignored the hard springs under his side, ignored the draft drifting over his face, ignored the stiffness of the quilt... he could almost imagine that everything was still okay.

Ms. Elizabeta flipped her hand, and he felt her knuckles roll against his skin. "You don't feel warm," she remarked, drawing her arm back. "Do you have a stomach ache?"

He shrugged and turned his face into the pillow. He didn't know why she was pushing him. If today was their day of rest, why wouldn't they let him stay in bed?

"Would you like me to stay?" she asked him.

"Don't worry about me," he mumbled. "I would hate to be an inconvenience."

"Don't say such a thing. I don't _need_ to go every Saturday, and I can stay and Roderich can go this morning, and then in the evening we can switch -"

"I'd rather not be a trouble."

She gave him a pitying smile, but got up from the bed and went to the door. "We're not leaving just yet. There's some bread downstairs, if you're hungry..."

"Thank you, Ms. Elizabeta," he replied in blunt dismissal. The Hungarian woman shut the door, and he was finally, _blissfully,_ alone again.

But the sudden presence and then sudden absence of another person next to him left Ludwig more upset than before. There was no stronger body emitting heat, no arm slung across him or big feet tossing sheets haphazardly onto the floor, no soft snoring...

His stomach twisted.

There was no other regular breath, no being jolted into consciousness and being told the most recent, fantastic dream, no hand to clutch to him if he had a nightmare...

The sparks behind his eyelids grew brighter.

No incoherent mumblings, no being accidentally steam rolled, no scent of dirt and sweat and metal...

His gut roiled. When he swallowed, something sweet and acidic rose in his throat. A chilling heat was cast over his skin, and he scrambled out of the bed and untangled himself from the quilt, throwing open the door with a slam and racing down the hall towards the bathroom before vomiting into the toilet. It made his throat burn and his legs weak, and his arms wrapped around his middle and he crouched over the toilet bowl, sobbing, barely able to breathe, which made everything worse.

He heard the door being pushed, and Ms. Elizabeta's sharp intake of breath.

"Oh, Ludwig, Ludwig, _szeretet -"_

He felt her hand on the back his neck, and he cried harder.

"Calm down," she kept repeating. "Shh, calm down, sweetheart. It's okay. It's alright."

He barely registered her picking him up, Mr. Edelstein coming in and helping him out of his clothes while Ms. Elizabeta turned on the shower. Water cascaded down his back, he was scrubbed, and then being helped into clean clothes. Mr. Edelstein sang, and it made his heart pang in the way that reminded one that something horrendous has happened.

 _"_ _Oyfn pripetshik brent a fayerl,_

 _Un in shtub iz heys,_

 _Un der rebe lernt kleyne kinderlekh_

 _Dem alef-beys…"_

Ms. Elizabeta lifted him again and he clutched at the back of her dress, blubbering through sobs, snot bubbling under his nose and breath huh-huh-huffy with each inhale and exhale. He couldn't even help it. It hurt so _bad._

He was dimly aware of being put back into a freshly-made bed, hands still firmly in Ms. Elizabeta's dress, because he didn't _want_ to be alone, _please, please,_ please _don't leave me_ alone.

His name was repeated like a mantra, and he felt her hands running through his damp hair. His shuddering body pressed up against hers, so Ludwig didn't notice the tears running down her own face.

"It's okay," Ms. Elizabeta said again. _"Miért itatod az egereket?_ Why do you give drinks to the mice? It's okay, it's okay."

The words were repeated countless times, even though they all knew that they were empty, hollow, and hopelessly, utterly, unspeakably broken.

 _"_ _...Az ir vet, kinder, dem goles shlepn,_

 _Oysgemutshet zayn,_

 _Zolt ir fun di oysies koyekh shepn -_

 _Kukt in zey arayn!_

 _Zet zhe, kinderlekh, gedenkt zhe, tayere,_

 _Vos ir lernt do;_

 _Zogt zhe nokh a mol, un take nokh a mol,_

 _Komets alef - o!_

 _Oyfn pripetshik brent a fayerl,_

 _Un in shtub iz heys,_

 _Un der rebe lernt kleyne kinderlekh_

 _Dem alef-beys."_

 _"_ _As you endure our years of suffering,_

 _Their burden you will bear,_

 _Be inspired by these little letters,_

 _Their message for all to share._

 _"_ _Listen carefully, remember, little ones,_

 _What you're learning now,_

 _Repeat it once again, again and yet again,_

 _The sign under the Aleph is O._

 _"_ _In the little hearth flickers a little flame,_

 _Warmth spreads through the house,_

 _And the rabbi teaches the little children,_

 _The Hebrew aleph-bet."_

* * *

 **Song: Oyfn Pripetshik. Yiddish.**

 _ **szeretet -**_ **sweetheart (or something along those lines. Google Translate Hungarian).**

 ** _drágám -_ dear (again, something along those lines. Hopefully. Google Translate Hungarian).**

 **Also, currently writing Gilbert's POV. It won't just be Ludwig's.**

 **:) Bye, thanks for reading!**

 **xxSonoSveg**


	3. Elizabeta Is Not Fat

**And here we have another chapter :D**

 **Dear gosh, guys. This is the quickest I've gotten reviews, follows, and favorites EVER (not that I've been here particularly long, but STILL). Thank you so much! :DDDDDDDDDDD Let's play the 'how many times have I used this emoticon' game :D**

 **Ludwig's POV again. Gilbert is next. I do a better Ludwig than Gilbert, so the latter's taking a lil' longer to get right. Alternating weeks I'm working on it with Timeless Mortalities because bbys need equal attention.**

* * *

"Oh, hurry up, Roderich!" Ms. Elizabeta called. She had Ludwig's hand in hers as they walked down the streets, Mr. Edelstein falling hopelessly behind.

"You walk too fast," he puffed, sliding his glasses up his nose, beads of sweat making them slip down again.

"We're walking at a perfectly appropriate place," Ms. Elizabeta retorted. "You, on the other hand, appear to be imitating a snail."

They waited for him to catch up, though when they started moving again Ludwig was torn between racing forwards and pulling back.

They were heading towards the Wall.

Yesterday, Mr. Edelstein had gone to check it out first, finding it only to be a few cinderblocks high. Just enough to see over.

Ludwig held Ms. Elizabeta's hand tighter. He was determined to keep his composure - his horrible sobbing episode had been humiliating, and he was determined not to cause such a mess again. But he still couldn't help swallowing down the tightness in his throat. How did such a relatively short wall separate Gilbert from him? Gilbert liked to claim Prussian ancestry, but they lived in _West_ Berlin, in the American sector, not in the East and the Soviets! Gilbert only worked at company that shipped out industrial equipment. Didn't he have his identity card with him? The thought hit him like train. Yes, yes, he should have his identity card, right? He should have showed it to someone so they would let him out.

"Don't crease your forehead like that," Ms. Elizabeta chided quietly, studying him. "You'll have wrinkles by the time you're thirteen. Don't worry; I'm sure Gilbert is fine."

"He should have his identity card," he blurted.

"It's for the West?"

"Of course it's for the West. I - We live in the West."

"Have you _seen_ his identity card?"

"I -" he paused. He had to have seen it before. "Yes. See? Look at mine." He brought it from his pocket and showed it to her.

"But you're _sure_ it looked like this. It wasn't another color? Blue, perhaps?" She pointed at the words _Bundesrepublik Deutschland,_ nearly shoved them under his face.

He shook his head. "It looked exactly like mine."

"And your parents? They were from the West, too?"

"Gilbert says Mutti was from the East."

She frowned. "Was Gilbert born in the East?"

"I - I don't know."

She rubbed his shoulder. "We'll figure it out."

He sure hoped so. The thought of Gilbert on the other side of the wall ran in circles inside his head and made him dizzy. He couldn't tell which was worse - this, or the initial murkiness that had dragged him down and threatened to drown him. He was still thinking about it when Ms. Elizabeta came to a halt and gave him arm a small tug.

"Look," she said, pointing.

He followed her finger.

Ah. So this was the wall.

He felt a kind of chill come over him, hairs prickling on his arms despite the strength of the high summer sun.

It wasn't tall - at least, not tall yet. It appeared to be plain concrete and mortar, topped with a crown of barbed wire.

Ms. Elizabeta coaxed him forward. He walked with her step for step, blinking at the monstrous thing as if it was a dragon come to life.

They stopped again, right before it. The sudden halted scuff was all that was left to go. Ms. Elizabeta immediately went to her toes, stretching her neck in an effort to peer over. Ludwig put his hand on the wall. It was warm and rough beneath his fingers. He wondered how wide a wall had to be to separate one world from another, even if they were part of the same solar system.

"Are there -" Mr. Edelstein paused, producing a handkerchief from him breast pocket, removing his glasses and wiping his face, coming up beside them. "- Do you see any soldiers around?"

"There's a few people passing by," Ms. Elizabeta answered, "but I can't see very well. Just some heads." She tried jumping.

Mr. Edelstein replaced the glasses on his nose and made a hum in his throat. He never grunted, Ludwig noticed. Just hummed. "They've built it up a bit more than the last time I saw it. Here, pick me up, Liza."

"Pick _you_ up?" she huffed. "With all that cake you like to eat?"

"Then I suppose you want _me_ to pick _you_ up?"

"Is there something you're wanting to say, Roderich?" She gave him the Glare. Another thing Ludwig had picked up while staying with them: You either answer her or know better than to answer her. Her body went all stiff, hands to hips and chest drawn up, eyes squinting and an eyebrow arched high in expectation. There was no counter for it.

Mr. Edelstein coughed and turned his head away. "Ah. Not at all, dear. In my defense, you are wearing a dress."

She lifted her chin and stood stock-still in front of him. "By the waist, then."

Mr. Edelstein looked both exasperated and frightened. He laid his hands just above her hips and strained to lift her, leaning backwards in the effort, arms trembling like pale, strummed violin strings.

"Ow! Roderich!" She squirmed, and Mr. Edelstein dropped her.

"Did you see anything?" he asked.

Ms. Elizabeta rubbed her sides sorrowfully. "No! You barely lifted me over the barbed wire - I could have smashed my face in it, thanks to you. You nearly pulled the skin of my middle up to my chest. _Kevés vagy, mint mackósajtban a brummogás."_

"I can't put up on on my shoulders -"

"Well, I have a spectacular idea. Pick up Ludwig instead."

Ludwig ripped his hand from the wall. "What?"

Ms. Elizabeta wasn't looking at him, though. She was staring pointedly at Mr. Edelstein, who only set out a puff of a sigh and got down on his knees.

"Go on, Ludwig," the Hungarian woman said. "See over."

"Is it safe?" he pondered.

"Well, there's certainly no reason for anybody to shoot. Up you go now - that's right. Oh, don't moan, Roderich. He can't weigh more than all the desserts you eat in a single afternoon."

Ludwig clambered onto the Austrian's back. The man rose, grimacing.

"Soldiers?" he asked, face twitching in an effort to keep both his composure and his glasses on at the same time.

Ludwig shook his head, then nodded, looking out onto the East. "Yes. Four of them, two to the left and two to the right...the ones to the left are closer, but they're both some distance away."

Easterners passing by stood taller to look at him, slowing down, a few waving. He flapped his hand half-heartedly back.

"Has it changed?" Ms. Elizabeta asked.

"I don't know. I haven't gone over many times."

"Of course it hasn't changed," Mr. Edelstein snorted. "The Romans haven't come back for revenge on us barbarians, have they?"

"I was just _wondering."_

"Mr. Edelstein," Ludwig began, "can you hold me up just a little longer?"

"Of course he will, sweetheart," Ms. Elizabeta answered for him. "What do you see?"

He didn't answer. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled one long, shrill note, just like his brother had taught him, and called as loud as he could:

 _"_ _Gilbert!"_

* * *

 **HAHAHAHAHA :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D**

 _ **Kevés vagy, mint mackósajtban a brummogás -**_ **Okay I gotta be honest here I have no freaking idea. "you're as little as the roaring in a Mackó cheese" or something like that. Supposed to mean "useless" as a Hungarian** **expression. I dunno. The Internet is a magical place.**

 **See y'all! XD I'm gonna add one more of :D these :D HA I THINK I'M FUNNY.**

 **xxSonoSvegliato**

 **:D**


	4. Butterfly Hunter Unicorns

**So...**

 **This took forever. APOLOGIES.**

 **Excuse: February can kiss my ass. Honestly. It sounds so nice and lovely but really it's global warming and plague and this is the first time I've seen the sun in weeks! and let's binge watch anime Month. And GW's birthday. George Washington's favorite food was cherries. I'm not really sure how my sister knew that, but she's fanatic about good ol' GW. I don't like cherries. Partial to maple syrup and whipped cream. But cherries? I like asparagus better than _cherries._**

 **And, research is an endless field of _would this work or not gosh whats a reputable website that will give me info on Berlin wall okay okay hey history teacher what's the Berlin wall like oh, what do I need info for? Oh, nothing, just a normal Saturday night..._**

 **In short, sorry this came so late, and happy President's Day to all you Americans!**

 **GILBERT POV _finally:_**

* * *

Gilbert Beilschmidt had had no reason to believe that God had some bone to pick with him.

He had life good. He really did. House? Check. Food? Check. Job? Check. Health? Check. Ludwig, his little brother? Checkity-Check-Check-Check.

And then God gave him a whap on the side of the head and laughed, "Fuck you. Fuck you in particular."

He'd been returning home from work after a late night. Normal. It was Sunday, sure, and it was one of those Christian rules or whatever that you really weren't supposed to work. Sunday was special, blah blah, day of rest, blah blah. It would probably have meant more to him if he was (one) living in biblical times, (two) was devout enough to act as if he was in biblical times, and (three) had actually read an acceptable portion of the Bible. There was probably one lying in the house somewhere, but he couldn't be that sure. He went to church with Ludwig, and then sent his brother to Sunday school so he'd be able to vouch for him when Jesus looked at Gilbert all disappointed like and asked what the hell he thought he was doing in his life. He didn't do Bible stories. He did Grimm stories. Same thing.

He was thinking of which one to tell Ludwig that night. 'The Valiant Little Tailor'? 'Clever Else'? 'King Thrushbeard'?

He had narrowed it down between 'The Valiant Little Tailor' and 'King Thrushbeard' when there was a ringing shout of, _"Halt!"_

And suddenly there was a wall of barbed wire that had not been there that morning.

And suddenly he was trapped.

He had wandered through the streets in a daze. Didn't come to work the next morning and the morning after that, half because he was processing what had happened and half in retaliation. He had no place to go, so he slept on benches like a beggar. He had a few Deutsche Mark in his pocket. They were worth a lot more _here_ than back over _there,_ but he hadn't made a move to touch them until his third day, when he had finally succumbed to hunger.

He was itching to use some of the remaining to drown himself in pilsner.

He began to have the oddest dreams, too. They used to be the broken, impossible dreams, like giant turkeys racing after him, being eaten by a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Ludwig transforming into a moose. Now they were even more broken and impossible, which made them more terrible than fantastical. They came in one long drag or multiple flashes: he had to travel the entire world one night, go through skulls shattering and dead birds singing another. There were tools too heavy to pick up, people screaming, time stopping, earthquakes, floods, violent storms, sinking ships...Each time he shook sleep off, he was frozen in the dark, eyes wide and staring at the sky.

He got up off the bench and shook his head. The sky was bright now, and he had to blink the dark blotches out of his eyes when he stood up and started walking aimlessly around the foreign half of Berlin.

He avoided looking at the wall as much as possible, but his feet always had other ideas and he always ended up facing it. The Soviets were building it up alright. It was about as tall as him, an ugly combination of gray blocks and dark barbed wire. There was, in essence, so means of escape.

There were no soldiers in his line of sight, though that didn't mean they weren't around, which was why at first he dismissed the ringing shout.

He heard another time and starting walking again, only to have the shout grow louder, clearer.

 _"_ _Gilbert!"_

He bit the inside of his cheek. Man, that pilsner and a smoke. He was aching for some.

 _"_ _Gilbert!"_

He shook his head.

 _"_ _Fatöku lepkevadász!"_

Goddamn Hungarian woman, yelling things he didn't understand -

Oh.

Goddamn Hungarian woman Elizabeta.

And so he raced. Fuck the Soviets.

The first thing he saw as he leapt over the curb to the other side of the road was a blonde head pointed out over the wall, just a little bit away from him.

 _"_ _Gilbert!"_

 _"_ _Ludwig!"_ he gasped.

His brother's head whipped around. Gilbert nearly went crashing into the wall.

"It took you long enough" was all his brother said. His face was a little pale, and his eyes a little shiny, but he looked okay. He was okay.

Gilbert reached his hand up and grabbed his outstretched arm. "You yell like a girl."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Elizabeta said from the other side of the wall. She jumped, and Gilbert caught just a millisecond of her flying brown hair. _"Basszal meg egy egyszarvut."_

By God, he'd never thought being cursed at would be a symphony to his ears.

"Whatever you wanna think," he replied. "You're not a girl."

He heard a disgruntled cough. "You have no sense of manners, do you, Gilbert?"

 _"_ _Sissy_ \- I mean Roderich?"

"It's him," Ludwig answered. He appeared to be sitting on his shoulders. "What are you doing over here?"

"Oh, you know, just a normal, pleasant vacation on the beach."

His brother didn't say anything to that, just gave him a black look. He was like a tiny Opa - always managed to look like someone had just ran over his dog.

"What do you think I'm doing over here?" Gilbert sighed.

"That's why I asked."

"You're looking over a wall, in case you didn't notice."

"No, I didn't dismiss that note."

They stared at each other, dark maroon eyes against bright blue.

Gilbert broke it first, shaking his head. "Where are you staying? Not by yourself, right?"

"Ludwig's been staying with us," he heard Elizabeta answer. "Don't worry about it."

"Shit," he said in response. "Don't worry, Ludwig, I'll be back home in no time. Then you can get out of that hellhole."

 _"_ _Hellhole?"_ Roderich spat.

"Yeah. He probably hasn't gotten a wink of sleep with you playing your damned piano all night. All of Berlin can probably hear it. It's - what's the sissy translation? - _highly offensive to the ears."_

"I am a _professional musician,_ thank you very much -"

"All the more you should get back over here," Elizabeta interrupted, "before your brother's eardrums melt because of Debussy's _'Clair de Lune'."_

He'd let Roderich play the violin in his ears every night if he could get back over to the West. "I can't."

"You don't belong in the East," Ludwig snapped. "Stop being difficult. You aren't Prussian."

"I'd settle to be _English,_ Ludwig. I can't get back over. I'm trapped. I'm Eastern, now."

"Well, you've got an identity card for the Federal Republic of Germany."

"Don't you think I would have used it by now?"

"That's what I'm trying to understand."

Gilbert swore. "I don't have my identity card anymore, alright? It was forged. It was a fake. Something was wrong with it, I don't know."

"Fake?" Ludwig repeated. "But -"

"Yours is all right," he assured him.

"But I need to know why _yours_ wasn't. I'm a little less stuck than you are, at the moment."

"I didn't know mine was forged! It wasn't. At least, I don't think it was."

"How could you not know if your card was a fake?"

"Because there was never a wall up that made anybody say so, that's why! It's not really the card, see."

"Well, the sooner you spit it out, the sooner we fix this mess," Elizabeta bit. "Get on with it."

"I'm an engineer."

Ludwig gave him a quizzical look. "I know."

"No, no, you _know_ but you don't _understand._ That's why they put the wall up. They want to keep people in. Think about Mutti, Ludwig. Why do you think Vati took her to the West, and not let her stay? I work in a factory that ships out equipment for the Soviet Union - I might have a Western identity card, but the Soviets aren't so ready to let me go yet."

* * *

 _"_ _Halt!"_

 _He'd immediately flipped out his card and handed it over._

 _The soldier perused it, mouth twitching, and then put it in his pocket. "Turn around."_

 _"_ _What?"_

 _"_ _This is forged."_

 _"_ _The hell it is -"_

"Turn around."

 _And that was the first time he witnessed the beginning of the wall._

* * *

"They can't get away with that," Elizabeta spat.

"No one's challenging them."

Ludwig studied him. "You're not actually expecting for this to last, are you?"

"Me? Stay here? I think Elizabeta can only handle so many of your dirty socks," he responded back with a snort.

"But you'll get back."

"No doubt about it." He said things with a lot more confidence than he felt.

* * *

 **I didn't mention it above, but thanks so much for all the reviews, favorites, and follows :D They mean a lot!**

 ** _"_ _Fatöku lepkevadász!" -_ I got to be completely honest here, I have no idea. I wrote this a while ago. "Fuck you, butterfly hunter", maybe? (Perfect-exaaple-of-why-you-shouldn't-look-up-languages-on-the-internet Hungarian).**

 ** _"Basszal meg egy egyszarvut." -_ "Go fuck a unicorn". (Hungarian.) This is my favorite I want to know the exact way to pronounce this.**

 **Also, sorry English people for the whole 'I'd settle for being English' thing, but you're the original America :( But I love you, no offense to any of you peeps, you guys doled out Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë and educated my main man OSCAR WILDE. No harm done?**

 **Sorry, sorry!**

 **Let me know what you all think, please!**

 **Is 'surf' the shortened form of 'surface', do you think? And is 'suggest' really pronounced 'sug-jest'? I say it like 'suh-jest' and my friend looked at me and made me repeat myself three times. It would make sense, though, considering that the eye doctor said I don't _blink_ right and that I brush my teeth with a Star Wars light-saber tooth brush with a timer and sounds but I've never seen Star Wars, never ever. Not a single one.**


	5. Gag Me With A Spoon

**Another late update...*nervous laughter* So sorry, y'all.**

 **Hope this chapter makes up for it; it's definitely been my favorite scene (at least to write) so far!**

* * *

The restaurants and bars on the fringes of East Berlin were packed. The counter was sticky under his arm, and the stool he was sitting on had rip in the cushion fabric. The heat was stifling - made him anxious for a breath. Not mention all the fucking noise. Jesus Christ. It set his teeth on edge, all the sudden haws of laughter, clinks of glasses, growing buzz of voices, the incoherent mumblings of the Pole to his right.

" _Cholera ścianę, co to jest? Co oni sobie myśleli?"_

Gilbert downed the rest of his glass before motioning for another.

"I mean, like, what is this?" the Pole said, turning head over to look at him. Greasy blonde hair fell down on either side of his face, and Gilbert couldn't really shove down his revulsion. He didn't reply, but the Pole just kept staring at him.

"Seriously, though. You feel? I feel like you feel."

Gilbert sipped the head from his beer. "Are you talking to me?"

"Well, I'm not looking at anybody else."

"I don't know you."

"I'm Feliks Łukasiewicz."

Gilbert just took another mouthful from his glass.

"Well?" The Pole asked once it was obvious he didn't plan on responding.

"Well, Feliks Łukasiewicz, I don't know you."

"Then, like, tell me your name so we're not strangers. I totally don't like strangers."

"Then let's be strangers."

The Pole set his head on the table, moving his drink back and forth over the battered wood of the counter and staring at it languidly. "I'm a trapeze artist."

"Good for you. Don't talk to me."

"But it's super awkward. We're sitting, like, really close to each other. What do you do?"

"Right now, I'm drinking."

"Are you a soldier?"

"No."

"Are you Russian?"

"Do I sound Russian to you? No."

"Are you a drunkard for a living, or just a drunkard for right now?"

"No."

"That didn't make sense. Are you a train conductor?"

"No."

The Pole blinked, and then something like fear flashed across his eyes. "You're not _Stasi,_ are you?" he hissed in a lower voice.

"No. I'm not Eastern."

"What? You mean, like, from the other side of the Wall?"

Gilbert stared at the dark bubbles floating up the side of his glass.

Feliks laughed. "Westie should get home, shouldn't he? Westie doesn't belong over here."

"Shut up," Gilbert growled.

The Pole ignored him. "Westie thinks he's better than me, doesn't he? Westie lost?"

"Go _away."_

"Westie come here for a cheap drink? Oh, no, Westie's getting _tense._ It's getting dark, _kolega._ Better get home. Or did you come to see the opera? Come here with the British?"

"Do you want to take this outside?" Gilbert suggested lowly. His knuckles were white, and he pressed his fists against the bar. They were itching to go flying, to land with a crack on something solid, like a certain Pole's bone. Or maybe they wanted something soft, like the Pole's stomach. No, both.

"Can't take the glasses outside, pal. But if the Westie is hungry for a fight...Does he think I can sate him?" The Pole barked. "Ha! Westies are never satisfied."

Gilbert slammed a coin on the counter and got up.

"Hey, where you going?" Feliks called after him. "I was totally not done talking to you."

Gilbert started walking.

"Westie going home, now? Westie just needed to feel superior, that's it."

He could sense him following him. It made his skin crawl.

"Westie, Westie."

He pushed open the door.

"Westie have a smoke? Westie have a smoke? Come on, Westie. Come on."

He was trailing him. Gilbert continued down the sidewalk.

"Westie -" the Pole started, laying his hand on his shoulder.

And it was then that he whirled around and attacked. He brought his knee up and slammed it into the other man's nose. There was a satisfying crunch and a spray of blood, and then they were both screeching, fists flying and feet kicking and heads butting. Gilbert got a punch to the eye, and he managed a kick into Felik's stomach.

There was a tugging on the back of his shirt, and he threw an arm back against another head. There was a squeal of surprise, and he got a glimpse of a man backing off, eyes darting, worried.

Feliks smiled. "At least you can get over the Wall, _kolega._ I'm trapped here with all you _Germans."_

 _"_ _Feliks! Stop!"_

"Somebody's callin' for ya," Gilbert spat. "Run along now."

Feliks fist shot out and he caught it, twisting the Pole's arm so far that Felik's body arched. The man let out a high-pitched sound.

"You scream like a girl," Gilbert sneered.

"And you fight like one," Feliks seethed, writhing. He hooked Gilbert's ankle with a foot, sending them both crashing to the concrete. The observer had returned, this time pulling on the back of Felik's shirt, shouting a mixture of apologies and reprimands. Brown hair was escaping its tie, and was hurriedly brushed back as the man yanked on the Pole. Feliks swore and shoved him back. _"Not now, Toris."_

Gilbert picked up the nearest rock and hurled it. "Yeah, not _now,_ Toris."

The stone clipped the man's shoulder and sent him stumbling back. Neither Gilbert nor Feliks paid much mind to it.

That is, until Gilbert received a hard kick to the spine. He heard a haw of laughter from Feliks, followed by a startled _oof._

"Just _what_ are you two doing?" came from above. Gilbert blinked the fading sun from his eyes and struggled back to his feet.

"Nothing, obviously. Do you -" he broke off with a startled snort. "Dear god, who are you?"

"That's Toris," Feliks answered for him, rubbing his side with a scowl. "He's, like, totally a traitor."

Toris was a little more interesting than that. It wasn't the sun that Gilbert had blinked out of his eyes, but the sun reflecting off of the _thousands of plastic jewels_ sewn to the man's _leotard._ He hadn't noticed it before - he had been too caught up in trying to smash Feliks' nose into his brain - but now...

It came out at first as snigger, and then as uncontained, full-blown donkey haws. "What are you _wearing?"_

Toris looked down at himself with a frown. "I knew I should have changed," he muttered under his breath, and then looked up and said, "A uniform."

"That's not a uniform, that's a sequined something that should never touch the skin of a man's body."

"It's a uniform," Toris repeated, jaw squaring, but Gilbert noticed the color beginning to rise to his cheeks.

He put his hand up with one last laugh. "Okay, it's a uniform. Uniform for what? for humiliation?"

"The circus," Toris snapped.

"He has the shiniest coat, too," Feliks added. It did not help their case, and Gilbert held in another bout of laughter. "I wish I had it. But mine's just, like, the ugliest combination of blue and white possible." He pulled up his sleeve to reveal the second, tight one beneath it, with alternating stripes of said blue and white.

"The circus," Gilbert managed, pushing his hair back out of his eyes. "By god. I've never met circus freaks before."

"I told you," Feliks hissed, "I'm a _trapeze_ artist. And I wouldn't mess with Toris, he's into the impalement arts."

"Well," Gilbert replied, looking Toris up and down, "he's definitely impaled my eyes."

"Gag me with a spoon," Feliks spat. "He'll make you the next target, see if you'll be talking _then."_

"Feliks, let's go."

"He's into archery, and he's totally the best at it. Never misses his target. I mean, never never misses his target, because you're not supposed to hit Raivis. His target is not the target. So he never misses to miss Raivis but he always hits his target."

"Feliks. Come on."

"I guess you don't have circuses in the West? Westie would make a great target performer. Raivis can be a clown."

Toris' eyebrows drew in at that, and he looked away from Feliks' face to Gilbert. "You're from the West? What are you doing over here?"

"I got trapped by the Wall."

"You have your identity card, don't you?"

"I did, before it was _stolen."_

"Karma," Feliks sang.

"Are you Stasi?"

"I'm not _Stasi."_

"Where are you staying?"

"On benches, at the moment. What, actually considering hiring me as target practice? Sorry, I might still have a job at the factory."

"You can stay with us, if you want."

"T-toris!" Feliks sputtered. _"Kurwa mac, dupek!"_

"Why hell would I stay with you?" Gilbert asked, spitting on the sidewalk and rubbing the blood pulsing from his lip away from his chin.

"Have you looked at yourself?" Toris bit back. "Look, it was only an offer. No need to get waspish about it."

Benches weren't comfortable. And although the sky overhead had only a few clouds, this was Germany. It would rain sooner rather than later.

"Would you use me as target practice?" he asked warily.

"If you remain civil- then no. If you laugh at my uniform, consider yourself yet another masterpiece of the archer's art."

* * *

 **" _Cholera ścianę, co to jest? Co oni sobie myśleli?" -_ "Damn the wall, what is it? What were they thinking?"(Polish).**

 _ **kolega-**_ **buddy (Polish).**

 ** _"Kurwa mac, duper!" -_ "whore" something "asshole". (Polish).**

 **There is, I promise, a reason for the circus. _Trust me._ For now, blindly enjoy the sequins.**

 **Happy March!**

 **xxSveg**


	6. Pink Radio Will Get You Killed

**I RISE.**

 **Yes, it is true: I am not dead.**

 **For the most part.**

 **This is pretty short, it's just setting Gilbert up with a fab apartment.**

 **Excuse for small hiatus: Voltron Hell. Exams. Daily role of the comic relief.**

 **Also, I know NOTHING about communism. I don't know how it works in the slightest. If anyone wants to fill me in, feel free to, because I don't want to misrepresent anything.**

 **But...Yeah. Here we go.**

* * *

Okay.

Okay, he had to say, being able to take a shower was a relief, even if it was freezing cold because Feliks had taken up all the warm water.

They lived in a flat near the edge of East Berlin, which was awesome. If he poked his head out one of the windows, he could see right over to the West.

The actual inside of the flat, however, was...well... _interesting._ It was as if a whole horde of unicorns had came in, thrown a sick party, gotten too drunk and then thrown up glitter everywhere. Which was, to say, that it was a complete mess. There were costumes thrown on the bright pink couch, brightly colored feathers on a deep red love seat, jewels glued to lampshades. The walls were spatters of dark purple and green paint, as if they couldn't decide on a color and just threw the paint cans on the wall. The hardwood floors were covered by fluffy, sky blue rugs.

Gilbert had never imagined that he would be staying in such a place.

He turned the water off and wiped a towel off of the neatly folded stack on the floor, drying off and changing (thankfully) in a nice, normal, not sparkly shirt and pants. The fact that they were Toris' he decided he'd have to look over.

When he came back into the living room, Feliks was flipping through a beat-up book on the pink sofa. His hair was still sopping wet, and was strewn in stringy pieces over the couch's arm.

"Look who's not in a leotard," Gilbert said with a smirk.

Feliks lifted his head, eyes narrowed. "Like, look, _kolega,_ maybe you should just close your lips- yes, just like you are now - no, don't open them! Shh. Yes! That's better. So much better. My ears cry their thanks."

"Why don't you -"

He'd barely started his sentence before Felix hurled a book at his face.

"Shhh," the Pole hissed, a finger pressed to his lips. "Educate yourself, don't embarrass yourself."

Gilbert's fists curled at his sides, and he made no move to pick the book up from off the floor. "Where's your girlfriend?"

Felix stiffened. Gilbert had no idea what part of his sentence was so effective, nor why. But, hey, whatever.

"You know, Leotard," he said.

"His name is Toris, dumbass," Feliks snapped.

"Toris, Leotard, what's the difference?"

"Do you lack common sense, or are you just stupid?"

"Selective sense," Gilbert responded immediately, smirking.

Feliks gave him a withering look, and then turned back to his book, muttering to its pages, "Bananas."

"What?"

"Bananas."

"Yeah, I know. What's he want with bananas?"

The Pole gave him another black look. "They don't come in very often, you know."

"They don't?" He wasn't a _huge_ fan of bananas - not a huge fan of any fruit - but the concept of bananas meaning something big was strange.

"Once, twice a year," Feliks replied. He closed his eyes, as if reliving some memory. "Sometimes we go out and work in the fields, too."

"What are you talking about?"

"Strawberries. They're totally better than bananas."

Gilbert was completely lost. "You don't have strawberries?"

"We have strawberries, _idiot._ Were you even, like, listening? You go out and work in the field, you get to buy a certain amount."

"But that doesn't make sense!"

"What? Picking strawberries?"

"No. Whatever you pick, that's what you bring back -"

Feliks nose scrunched up. "You lived in the American sector, didn't you?"

Gilbert didn't respond to that. "Say, you guys have a telephone anywhere?"

"Telephone? Hell no. Wouldn't work, anyway. Service is unreliable - and if it wasn't, the Stasi would be eavesdropping."

"They can't do that."

"'Course they can, idiot. The Stasi are everywhere - you don't even know where."

"You can't be serious, right?"

"Why not? They're a secret police. A secret police can do anything they want, because we won't know a thing."

"What about radios, then? You've got one?"

Feliks rolled his eyes. "We don't have a telephone, and before you ask, no, we don't have television - but yes, of course we've got a _radio._ Right -" he grunted, turning over and stretching out an arm to point with a finger - "there. Next to the chair, on the side table."

Gilbert looked in the direction he was pointing and grimaced.

"You painted it _pink."_

" _I_ didn't paint it. I made Toris do that. I just picked out the color. _Don't_ touch it."

"Why not?"

"Because your oily hands are totally going to ruin it," Feliks huffed, getting up. "There's nothing interesting on it, anyway. What do you want it for?"

"Do you get Western broadcasts?"

"We listen to Radio Free Europe from time to time. Goddamn Americans. It's like they want to take over the whole world. No!" He slapped Gilbert's hand away from the knobs. "I told you not to touch it! _Debil!_ You'll get us all killed!"

* * *

 **Story time with Sveg: That moment when you "accidentally" right a fan fiction on Russia at Chernobyl and turn it in as a chemistry portfolio piece and your teacher really likes it and starts asking where you got the idea from and you don't know what to do so you just sit there and smile and slowly feel yourself crumble a little inside.**

 **Story time with Sveg 2: That moment when you start making Voltron** **fan art (hah, like I'm artistic.) I traced Lance and Shiro from Voltron using Adobe Illustrator and gave a Shiro to my teacher and he hung it up on his wall. But not the same teacher that hung up a piece of 2p! Rome fan art. A different one. Who watched Attack on Titan because I talked about it and yes inside I am screaming I am always screaming like a bird that is afraid of heights.**

 **HAPPY MAY EVERYBODY.**

 **KEEP ON CHUGGING.**

 **CHOO-CHOO-CHOO**

 **LIKE THAT.**

 **Kisses for y'all -**

 **xxSonoSvegliato**


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